


The Crime

by Happyorogeny



Series: The Wardens [1]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: F/F, Gen, Grief, Past Attempted Murder, Singing, mentioned Illidari
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 15:10:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13766769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happyorogeny/pseuds/Happyorogeny
Summary: Maiev needs a little alone time.





	The Crime

It took Maiev the better half of the night to hike into the jagged mountains of the Broken Shore. But only because she was taking her time about it.

She went about her business in full armour. As always. A warden had to be agile enough to cling to the smallest handholds and balance on the narrowest ledges. Where there was no path, she created one.

It would be worth it.

That was what she had always told herself.

She was not one for regret. Regret was a serpent that devoured a person whole.

But there were things she felt the absence of.

Her sisters she missed more than anything and grief stabbed her afresh every time she opened her eyes. Her loyal saber Fleetpaw was entirely beyond her reach, still stabled in Darnassus, an utter waste of courage and catflesh.

Despite all the time that had passed she ached for certain places in the forest. The deer trails of the eastern reaches, always rich with strawberries in the summer. That one mountain lake where moon lilies opened in a slow wave as the Blue Lady rose. The nearby meadows where a woman could dream amidst flowers and rise to hunt deer.

All of it lost to her because she had pursued her duty. She stopped to catch her breath on a granite outcrop, looking down over the camp.

It hadn’t been duty in the end, she could admit that. It had been something pernicious. The Highbourne hadn’t belonged, hadn’t deserved forgiveness. Yet…

She had never been one for regret. Gauntleted fingers flexed, pulling her cloak tight. These days she always felt cold. Perhaps it was a curse, that the ghosts of her old life haunted her yet. No matter. She was stronger than any curse. 

Maiev had ever been a creature of skill. She could lift a weapon and know its purpose. She could look at someone and know their soul. She could travel and track and survive in any wasteland.

But before all of that, she had been able to sing. Every priestess had to sing.

No octave was beyond her, she traversed the male chants and the holy arias with ease. She could harmonise with herself, singing with many voices from within. She could lull a child to sleep, she could soothe a bear or intimidate a feral nightsaber.

Even back then some had thought her mad for her conviction that Elune spoke to her. Deranged. It mattered not. In the early days their race was widespread in the forest and the soul could grow lonely. Solitude was a sweet sorrow, but it was easy for a wanderer to become lost. She was the one to guide them back, singing an endless round so that her voice carried across the entire expanse of the forest.

That was the song as part of her duty. But she missed the song as part of her soul, hummed as she darted along tree branches, thrilled to the birds, sung low and rich in the mountains so that her voice echoed back a thousand fold.

She cast a critical eye over the spires around her, large jagged spikes capped with snow and collapsing in upon themselves. It would have been exactly the kind of place she came to practice, years upon years ago. 

She hesitated.

When Tyrande replaced her Maiev had become mute, as surely as if someone had torn the tongue from her head. Entire months she had gone silently in the world, speaking only in hand signals to her sisters. It was blasphemous for her to sing. She was the old face of the moon, ousted. To sing would be tantamount to declaring civil war.

But who cared now? Elune? Tyrande? Hah!

Yet still she hesitated, surrounded by grey clouds atop the airy peak.

She had never been one to hesitate.

If Elune wanted an obedient warrior-priestess without an original thought of her own, that was divine prerogative. Why should she fear a god that wanted such milkwater followers?

Yet she hesitated.

If the desire was in her heart, surely Elune had put it there. It was the worse crime to doubt her Goddess, was it not? Was it not a worse crime to defy what she had been made to be?

Oh, honestly. As if her choices had never been her own.

She remembered Jarod gasping, her hands around his neck.

Wasn’t it the worse crime, if her choices had been her own?

Yet he had forgiven her. But she could not forgive herself.

Perhaps that was the punishment. Death was an easy thing. Duty was like the sands of the desert, a hundred thousand fragments of rock that weighed a person down and buried them alive.

But even a buried person could sing. The voice, alone and unfettered, could soar higher than any bird.

Yet she hesitated.

Well, for all her crimes she knew herself.

It was a simple enough gesture to loosen the gorget around her neck. Beneath cold steel, beneath the padded bodysuit Maiev wore a scarf of the finest nightsilk. It was older than even the so-called Alliance monarchy and shone silver in the moonlight. She wore it pinned at the neck with a wooden token. She had watched Naisha carve it, wondering how she could coax a blooming rose out of wood.

Honestly, look at her. Fussing over a simple decision like a maid with only a few hundred summers under her belt.

She dusted herself off and stood. It was correct to sing with the face turned up towards the moon. Correct, but it wasn’t quite right. She looked off into the middle distance and closed her eyes.

The lesser races could not sing. They could make noise, loud and warbling. But they could not sing. They thought a song was elegant, delicate, floating like a bird upon the wing.

No. A song was a brutal thing wrested bloody out of the soul and focused by the will of the singer. A song was a cry of ecstasy, reined in and focused. A scream of grief rendered in terrible harmony. Rage made coherent.

It was as if nothing had ever changed. She was in the dusky twilight of the forest once more, surrounded by loamy soil and iridescent fireflies, and she sang. She didn’t think. She didn’t feel. She simply was. It was beyond peace, beyond the frantic flutters of the heart and the mind. Transcendent.

She had lost much. But she still had this. 

A bone deep rumbling intruded upon her. She snapped back into herself instantly and whirled, glaive in hand. But no, it was simply an avalanche. The snow crumbled before her, as all things inevitably did, and went tumbling past to rumble down the mountainside.

She leaned forwards to peer over the edge, following its descent. Ah. It was only going to hit the Illidari camp, and barely dust them at that. The feckless creatures always slept in late and could do with a wakeup call.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this work, check out the rest of my writing and find me at https://happyorogeny.tumblr.com/writing


End file.
